THE CHOICE IN NOVEMBER: Save The Economy Or Save Democracy

We've long been proponents of the idea that if you want to keep
the economy afloat, you need to keep deficit spending going. And
if you want to keep the deficit spending pumping, then the clear
answer in November is Mitt Romney.

While it's true that Romney and the rest of the Republicans talk
about cutting spending, that's total nonsense. Austerity is
purely the domain of opposition parties. Spending cuts and
shrinking government is a new Republican idea that only formed
under Obama, and as soon as Romney gets into office, the party
will revert to its traditional beliefs.

Of course, if Obama wins re-election, and the GOP goes down with
the milquetoast Massachusetts liberal, then the fury of
Congressional Republicans will come to a boil, and we'll get more
digging in than ever.

Klein does a better job than we ever could explaining the
technicalities of what could and will happen under various
election outcome scenarios, but the gist is the same: Romney win
= more likelihood of prolonged deficit spending. Obama win =
potential fiscal cliffmageddon.

More and more people are grasping this. This is a great line from
Klein's post:

Miles Nadal, CEO of the marketing and communications firm MDC
Partners, says that at a recent event with executives of more
than 100 companies, the business leaders, panicked about this
possibility, agreed on the best outcome for the economy: “a
Republican landslide.” Why? “Because anything that breaks the
logjam is positive,” he says. “The quality of the leader is less
relevant than the ability to break gridlock.”

But the idea of a Keynesians For Romney campaign really
distresses people, since it's basically a tantamount to rewarding
the GOP for being obstructionists, that won't pass the slightest
bit of stimulus if it's proposed by a Democratic President.
Actually it's worse: As the Republicans showed last summer, the
party is willing to take the nation to the brink of default.

Hence Klein concludes:

This is the logical conclusion of a system biased toward
gridlock: The out-party benefits when the public feels that
Washington is failing and it often has the power to make
Washington fail. Which, arguably, leads to another unusual
reality about this election: Even if you agree with Romney’s
policies, it may be that voting for Obama, and delivering a
landslide against the GOP’s economic brinksmanship, is the only
way to end the dangerous appeal of strategic gridlock going
forward.

So which are you more worried about? The fiscal cliff and the
debt ceiling? Or the political system?

Others have made the same conclusion. Here's economist Andy
Hardless tweeting the same idea.